Truths
by msgrits
Summary: Sequel to Rumors Grissom, Sara, Johnathan and Thandie make a life together. Thandie finds love. Sara might want to expand the family. Grissom isn't sure about any of it.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This is much requested sequel to Rumors. I hope you enjoy.**

**Thanks to Cybro and Danese for the beta work. If you don't like fluff then move along doggies cause Grits is having a flufftastic summer cause WE ARE CANNON BABY!**

**I own nothing.**

_**Grissom**_

It's silly really. That my life and my grandson's life are strikingly similar. We are two dark haired, blued eyed, bow legged males at the mercy of the women we sleep with. They dress us and feed us and generally tell us what we are going to do with the rest our lives

Sara is stacking 9 grain pancakes on my plate and muttering about my cholesterol as she doles out blueberry syrup like its K rations. Thandie is doing pretty much the same thing with Jonathon only he gets his cut up and Thandie is making ruminations about being a big boy. Actually, he's getting the better deal.

Jonathan says that I should hurry up because we have to go to the park to practice. I am not quite sure what we are practicing. Whatever it is, we have been doing it for a week and it involves a football and a softball bat and lots of running. The rules are a cross between croquet and baseball. The running meets with my wife's approval.

She and my doctor are in some unholy alliance to turn back the hands of time. I like the hands of time just where they are.

"So how's the job hunt?" Sara asks Thandie, and I hope that my daughter doesn't think we are trying to get rid of her.

"Oh I got an offer, forgot to tell you guys. They were actually looking for a Nurse Practitioner but they decided they would take me instead."

I'd never quite understand what a Physicians Assistant does but she has a prescription pad and a stethoscope so as any parent would be I am proud beyond words.

She seems okay with it. Happy. I think. She's not worked in six months. The deadbeat husband. She finally signed them and overnighted them back to him. She and Sara talked afterwards. Sara said she wanted to make sure Thandie wasn't feeling any pressure from me to sign the papers. I guess my silent disapproval wasn't so silent

Dear old newly found Dad, who had to pack up his depressed daughter and confused grandson to forge a new family unit because Deadbeat wasn't ready for all the responsibility. Deadbeat is a 40 year old hospital administrator who didn't think he was ready for a wife and a child. He said they moved to "fast". I am sure that Deadbeat is banging his secretary or a nurse or someone else cause you don't leave your wife and your two year old kid for no apparent reason. He can run a 20 million dollar healthcare system but he can't take on the responsibility of wife and kid.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Sara waves a fork in front of my mouth. "Honey, are you listening?"

"Huh?' I mumble through a bite of food. She knows I wasn't listening. Why do they ask that stuff? Six weeks and the woman has this wife thing down.

A bit of blueberry syrup is resting on her upper lip and I consider licking it but if I do it Jonathan will think he can do it too. He's already a serious rival for Sara's affection.

"Sunday, Brunch, the team. We tell them."

"Sure." What else am I supposed to say? We've been keeping this whole marriage thing a secret. Sara wears her ring on her middle right hand finger. I wear mind on a chain around my neck. Greg asked Sara about the "bling" and she told him her new beau gave it to her. All heads turned to me for reaction but I did what I always do, I pretended not to notice.

I didn't really think the secret thing was a big issue for Sara but that was me being stupid-again. Oh how soon we forget. Didn't we just go through this drill six weeks before when I almost lost her because of my inability or perhaps my unwillingness to communicate with the people I care about?

There we were, sitting in bed, eating pizza and drinking beer while Sara polished her toenails. I was wondering 'why does she polish her toenails when she hardly ever wears sandals?' So there I am watching her paint her toe nails this really, really red color while the Saints are playing. Don't ask why we were watching the Saints. Sara said we must be in solidarity with the Katrina victims. She's always been a Saints fan but this was the most current justification.

Anyway watching her make these damn precise strokes with the polish and I decide that I am going to buy 200 pair of sandals for when she's not at work.

_After Sara had finished with the polishing and I was studying the ingredients on the back of the bottle she says, "You think we made a mistake don't you?"_

"_About the stocks?" We moved some money around for Jonathan's trust fund._

_She glared at me. I pretended not to notice. I had no idea what she is talking about._

"_About getting married."_

_That one threw me because I don't know what more a man could want. I have got a sports loving, toe nail painting, accepting my long lost daughter and grandson, hot, forensics expert wife. She could not be serious. Which is why I laughed._

_Here is where I would like for the man who might be reading this to stop and listen very carefully. Never, ever laugh. Only laugh after they have laughed and then only with extreme caution._

_I thought she was going to slap me. Instead she took several deep breaths and sucked on her Heineken._

"_Sorry," I mumbled looking as pitiful as I possibly could. "Things are great. Things are wonderful. This was the best thing I ever knowingly did."_

"_Knowingly?"_

"_Thandie was the best thing I unknowingly did."_

"_Oh." Her chocolate eyes softened and she smiled. "Then why won't you tell our friends?"_

"_Well I-I just thought-I don't' know. You wanna tell them? I thought you wanted to keep it private."_

_The glare returns. "Marriage is a public deceleration of how you feel about one another but it only serves its purpose if you tell people."_

_She was right. "Okay, we tell them next shift."_

"_Hows about we have a thing-you know-a gathering." The mood change surprised me and now I wonder how long she's been thinking about this. _

There's also the bit about Thandie and Jonathan. I don't know how I feel about three horny men meeting my daughter. I tried to sidestep the issue but on this I was again overruled. Why do they even ask us?

Every morning Thandie asks Jonathan what he wants to wear. He tells her and she says it's too hot, cold or whatever for him to wear whatever it was he suggested. He has no expectation that he can wear his Spiderman pjs to the park. He now says whatever just to move the process along.

My pancakes are gone. My organic orange juice if finished. My wife is making sure I have on a hat and sunscreen. Jonathan is getting the same drill only he doesn't have to wear his hat. He can just carry it in his backpack.

Jonathan and I push back from the table and gather our sports equipment, kisses all around. We are off to the races.

_**Sara**_

The doorknob turns a little but it's locked. This is the second time it's turned in five minutes. I have been married for a little over six weeks and so far locked doors are to be the biggest disruption in the Grissom household.

Jonathan is not used to his grandfather's door being locked. Actually Jonathan is not used to any door being locked.

The first morning we came home, had breakfast and went to our bedroom Jonathan followed some minutes later. The meltdown that followed was like none ever seen before. The child screamed in outrage, flopped like a fish outside on the floor and generally made it be known that we were perpetrating abuse of the worst sort.

I watched forlornly through the old fashioned keyhole.

Grissom and Thandie were firm about me not opening the door. I gotta say it was really, really hard and I bought Jonathan a bag of Skittles later on to make a truce.

There were a few more scenes over the next few weeks but gradually he got used to it as he came to understand that the door would not be locked all the time.

"_When you going to your house?" he finally asked one morning after I turned up for the third week in a row._

"_This is my house now sweetie."_

_He was silent for a few minutes as he worked on a strawberry. "Where your toys?"_

"_I have to pack them up and bring them here."_

That's what I did the next day after shift. Griss and I went to my apartment to pack up the rest of my books and clothing. My furniture was going to the local charity.

When Grissom's phone rang he had just finished taping up a box full of old textbooks. Jonathan was freaked, prone in the middle of the living room, refusing to get up, let alone eat his breakfast. Usually his mother would ignore it and he'd be off the floor in five minutes.

He'd been on the floor for 20 minutes. Thandie assumed her son wouldn't eat because his grandfather was missing but when she asked he replied, "Sara said she live here now. Where she at? She gotta eat for her cholesterol."

And that is how Sara Moonbeam Sidle Grissom learned the importance of routine to a child. We paid the Parkinson boy from the down the hall 30 bucks and two old microscopes to pack up the rest of the boxes. Jonathan and I took a walk where I told him that I would always try and be home for breakfast but just because I'm not there doesn't mean I am never coming home.

The knob is turning again and my husband is snoring. I am such a schmuck. In five seconds flat I have the door unlocked and my arms are full of little boy giggles and I admonish him to be quite because Poppop needs his rest.

Grissom opens one eye and then the other as we settle down next to him. "You open the door for every blue eyed bowlegged man that shows up," he mumbles pulling us both close.

I kiss him quickly and say, "Good for you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**As Cybro pointed out this is OC. Thanks to Cybrokat and Danese for the great beta work.**

**Thandie**

It was very jarring at first. Okay that's an understatement. It was basically earth shattering to find out that Jonathan Goodman was not my natural father. Thank God that he'd not lived to see that revelation. Sometimes I wonder if Mom even knew but I doubt it. Jonathan did look a bit like Gil.

The otosclerosis appeared after Jonathan had been born. I'd had the operation and not thought much else about it.. Between that and the newborn I'd not had time to think about the genetic component of the disease.

My mother's death sent me spinning in another direction. Less than six months after mother's husband, my first father, died she'd been diagnosed. She lived four months after her diagnosis and I always thought she would have fought harder if Dad had been alive.

Dad. I call Gil that sometimes but it doesn't seem right I don't think I could call them both Dad. I have been thinking about Pop or Daddy but none of them seem to fit Gil, just like they wouldn't have fit the man who raised me.

Gil, now there was a shocker. There I was with a toddler, still reeling from the shock of my parents' death when my husband decided that he couldn't handle the responsibility. I don't know what I expected when I went looking for Gil. Maybe just a connection of some kind. Someone left that was my own-what? I certainly didn't expect him to whisk me to Vegas, but I will be eternally grateful that he did. Maybe that's not true. Maybe I was just a little girl looking for her daddy.

I didn't know what to make of him at first. One could tell that he kept to his own council. He didn't seem to have many friends at first. Later I realized that his team was his friends and family. I didn't ask or push as to why I'd never met them. I can imagine a grown daughter and a grandson would be hard to explain and Gil was still trying to reconcile all that for himself. Not that I was up to socializing. It wasn't until I moved here that I realized how profoundly depressed I was. Physician heal thyself… right.

I actually can't wait to meet his group - that's what I am thinking as I amble over to the counter to help Gil unpack the groceries for Sunday's brunch. He doesn't feel very much in control of anything else so I think he wants to control the menu.

"What are you having?" I say as I pull a package of brown eggs from the top of plain brown paper bag.

He blinks for several seconds. "I thought I was alone."

"You want to be alone?" I tease as I put the brown, organic eggs in the refrigerator, the already overfull refrigerator.

"Uh-no-sweetheart. I didn't mean-." He smiles when he realizes that I'm only joking.

I reach into the bag and pull an unseen box into view. Gil's face goes white and then red as the box waves in the air.

To my surprise I am holding a 24 pack of Lucky Seven Ultra Think Lubricated condoms. "What kind of party is this?"

"Can it," he mumbles as he takes the condoms from my hand and walks out of the room. The good thing about meeting your parent as an adult is the thought of them having sex doesn't freak you out although it apparently freaks Gil out.

I continue to unpack the groceries. Eventually he meanders back in looking bashful and stern. His mouth set in a hard line

I can't resist. "No wonder the door is locked all the time. Don't worry, Jonathon and I will be out of your hair soon."

"No one is trying to get rid of you," he says quietly looking a little worried.

"You and your new wife need your house to yourself to screw on the kitchen table if you want."

"Thandie. You can stay as long as you want." I know he means it.

"I know. You and Sara are great." Changing the subject to get the focus off of me. When are you gonna give Sara some babies?"

At that moment, like he must have years before when he was young and in love with my mother, a flash of sweetness comes across his face then a smattering of confusion.

"You two have talked about it?"

He shakes his head. "No. I-I don't think she wants-" He stops talking and looks down at his hands. "-Kids. She always said she didn't..."

What he doesn't add is that he also told me that Sara said the same thing about marriage. Sara. It took me two months to figure what all the mumbling was about when he mentioned Sara's name. At first I thought he didn't like her. When he told me stories he breezed over her name as if the very thought of her would burn him. I guess it did.

It wasn't until he came home after a case where Sara was attacked by a psychiatric patient in a mental hospital where they were investigating. Over a breakfast that he barely picked over, he held Jonathan close and talked of how scared he was. How much Sara meant to him. Followed closely by reassurances that all his team meant a great deal to him. He talked of the guilt he felt over leaving Sara alone. He talked of wanting to do more but having the inclination that she didn't want to be smothered.

"_You love her?" I said suddenly after he said her name the second time; he'd actually said her name that morning. Sara, he said it like the syllables would break if his mouth turned them the wrong way. _

_He looked up then, in tandem with Jonathan. "She's-"_

"_You love her." A statement this time. "Gil you have to tell her."_

_He shook his head being petulant and began to rock Jonathan back to sleep. "I blew it a long time ago."_

"_She's still around isn't she?"_

"_She cared about me-once- but I didn't think it would work. She's quite a bit younger than I am-I am her boss. It was just difficult. I'm difficult."_

_My hand reached across and touched his. "You aren't difficult Dad, you're terrific."_

_He smiled and looked sheepish. "She's deserves better."_

"_Than who? You? Can't be better." _

_His eyes flitted away from mine and returned. "That's very sweet but I think you are required to say that."_

"_No, if you were a jerk I would tell you. Course I wouldn't be here. Tell her."_

He mumbled again that it was too late but he talked about her more after that. In particularly unguarded moments he talked about how smart she was, how interesting her looks were, how sweet she could be, how tough she was.

He is looking at me now as if he honestly never thought that Sara wanted kids. Gil is very smart and very stupid. He knows everything but misses a great deal.

"Dad you have seen her with Jonathan. That's not a woman who doesn't want kids. Trust me."

"I'm too old for kids. I'm a grandfather for goodness sakes."

**Sara**

My husband is looking at me funny. Well funnier than usual. I find that he does that a lot, like he can't believe that I'm his. This look is like something else though, like he wants to say something.

"What?" I ask.

"You're beautiful."

His eyes are all weird and darker than usual. Hah my husband wants a quickie before our friends get here and who am I to deny him.

"I was wondering," he says seriously. "I was wondering if you might like to-"

Hey, I can have this skirt up in five second flat "Take a tumble before our friends arrive?" Just the words start some serious longing in my nether regions.

He cocks his head to one side and gives me a familiar half grin and it occurs to me that he wasn't talking about that. Maybe it's me that has sex on the brain all the time.

"I was wondering if you might like to uh-"

Damn but he's cute with his hands stuffed in his jeans and that crisp blue shirt that brings out his eyes. What could possibly be befuddling him like this? It's like before we got married. Then something else occurs to me. He's been spending a lot of time on the computer and some travel brochures came in the mail. The ones with thin blond people sipping pink drinks, places my Grissom would scoff at because he finds them uninteresting and the insects "pedestrian" which, when you think about, is an odd remark for an entomologist considering that insects usually belong where they are found.

He's still stuttering so I let him off the hook. "I would love to go on a honeymoon but I want to go somewhere interesting."

Relief and a bit of something I can't place clouds his eyes for a second. His hands come out of his pockets and take residence behind his back. All of this is accompanied by heel rocking on his expensive loafers.

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know, surprise me, I would like some sun though but not a tourist trap."

Now he's looking at me strange again like I have lettuce in my teeth only I know I don't have lettuce in my teeth. I have on a cute linen skirt and matching cotton blouse along with some white low healed sandals my husband bought me. I think he has a foot thing.

He's close to me now, his hands holding my face gently. "You know you can tell me anything. If you want anything. I'm slow sometimes you know, so if there's anything..."

Lips meet lips and I put my head on his shoulder just as the doorbell rings. "I have everything I want."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Truths Chapter 3

**Brass**

Grissom pulls the door open and smiles benignly like there's nothing wrong. Like he invites us to his house all the time.

We march in single file.

We follow Grissom into the living room which is connected to his kitchen and the smell tickles my stomach. What a spread Grissom has laid out. There's food on every surface and nice plates stacked in some fancy thing. Fresh flowers on the window sill and in the counter. Warrick lays his gold eyes on me. Definitely a woman. If it were up to Griss we'd be eating chocolate covered grasshoppers and knocking back shots.

"I know you're all hungry." He starts out soft and gentle like when he's pulling a perp in. "I just wanted to tell you all," he clears his throat and gestures, "the people that are most important to me, that I there have been some big changes in my life."

Like that shirt and those jeans. He almost looks cool. I wonder if anyone else has noticed the band on his left hand. Maybe I can get to Cookie before Greg does. Greg loves her but he can be so insensitive sometimes.

"About a year ago, someone came into my life that I never expected. Actually two someones came into my life and they changed my life for the better. You all know that I am not very good at this kind of thing, that I am better at showing people how I feel than telling them, and I appreciate your understanding that about me. This person means a great deal to me, and before I did not think it was possible for me to feel this..."

Warrick shifts nervously. Catherine's grinning like a fool. Nick looks pleased but wary and Greg looks like me- like he wants to throw up. I work hard at listening to what Grissom is saying. I should try to be happy for him but I can't because I feel like I'm in the middle of a divorce. If there's a custody battle Sara gets to keep me.

He is edging towards the doorway now grinning like and old fool, dropping to the floor and reaching his arms out to some unseen small person. "I would like to introduce you all to my grandson Jonathan and my daughter Thandie."

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle.

**Thandie **

I am overwhelmed by cuteness. That's the only way I can describe it. How did so many good looking men end up working together?

To say they were shocked is an understatement. They were good at covering it up though, and after a brief explanation they seem to be taking to me well. They've got to be wondering where Sara is.

I stick my hand out to Warrick first. "'He's the only one that can reach above the lockers. He's cool and smart, still coaches a basketball team from his old neighborhood and his grandmother makes him got to church every Sunday.' You must be Warrick Brown."

He kisses my hand and says, "What a pleasure."

I cut my eyes to Catherine whose smile slips every so slightly. Moving on. No need to hover here, even Gil knows how those two feel about one another.

I turn to the shorter man who stands to his side. "Nick 'Nicky' Stokes He's brave, loyal, and honorable. Prince among men. He's kind, generous, the scientist with a heart. Comes for a big family. Every mother's dream. Sports fiend. Always sees the best in people."

He is grinning widely and I think he looks a bit like Superman, hair and all. "I sound like a puppy."

I decide that I will not say, "If they had you at the pound, baby I would take you home." Gil looks skittish. I can't imagine what it must be like to watch me ogle his friends.

Next up in the wild haired genius that Gil says he practices parenting on. "Greg Sanders. Stanford, surfing. Punk rock. Peroxide. DNA."

"Who knew Grissom could produce something that looks like you." He gives me a quick hug and a soft brush on the cheek. I take a good whiff off his cologne. Nice. He's bigger than I imagined. His touch is strong and his shoulders are broad.

Brass is my final man. Just adorable is the only way to describe him as he stands there in his well cut suit. "Jim BrassA man's man, a guy who can take a good punch as well as give them. Loyal, wisecracking, and blunt."

"I sound like a Micky Spillane novel." His small hands make a sandwich out my right hand. "I'm so pleased to meet you. You'll never know."

Greg is feeling left out so he chimes in. "Can we eat and then we can find out all about you since you got the goods on us."

Its tough turning away from the man feast but for Sara I do it. "I think he has something else he wants to tell you."

Gil clears his throat and this seems to be a bit harder for him. I certainly understand. How do you tell your friends that you have been married to another friends for weeks?

"I would also like to introduce-well that's not the right word. I would like for you to know that I have gotten married."

Faces go slack, and you can nearly see them lean back like in Asian cultures when you have shamed the family. Oh dear. It never occurred to me how loyal they must all be to Sara. They see she's not here and surely they know how they feel about one another. It's not funny but I want to laugh at the thought of my dad with anyone else but Sara.

Jonathan breaks the silence by calling out. "Sareeee! Come out, come out, wherevah you are!"

Long legs that I would give my left arm for are seen first as she breezes in the room looking cool and elegant in a way only the very tall and very thin seem to be able to pull off.

It's a madhouse now. Someone, Greg I think, starts a round of hip hip hooray. People are hugging Sara and clapping Grissom on the back. Jonathan is being smothered in tickles and lifted onto shoulders. Currently he resides on top of Warrick, his tiny hands disappearing into thick, coffee colored hair. He'll be going on and on about this for days.

"Warwreck, you hair is funny," he is saying as they drift to where the food is.

"Yeah, well, your legs are funny."

"Nuh uh. My legs like Poppop's." Jonathan says with proud determination giving Warrick's shoulders a little squeeze with his small rounded legs.

"Poppop!" Nick exclaims still holding onto Sara around the neck. "Aw this is better than the Super Bowl."

Greg is busy pilling fruit on one of his two plates. "I say we get all his CSI stuff monogrammed with 'Poppop'. Overalls. Hats. The works."

"Greg," Gil warns playfully.

"Aw come on boss. This is priceless. You gotta let me have something." He filling the second plate with turkey sausage links and fried potatoes from a large heavy bowl. "A wife, a kid AND a grandkid, boss, come on. I've been good for months. I haven't worn any evidence. No whoopie cushions, no hiding your spiders, I have even been nice to Hodges."

"You have twenty fours hours Greg, to say what you are going to say and do what you are going to do. After that I better not hear Poppop anywhere but out of a certain 3 year old's mouth."

"Me!" Jonathan has managed to maintain his mountain top view from atop Warrick shoulders munching on a strawberry that Nick has just handed him.

Brass is standing very close to me. He moves so lightly one hardly knows he's there. Dad does the same thing. "So the big question is for Mrs. Grissom. Are you gonna let him keep wearing that dam hat?"

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Yeah Yeah. I don't want to study the implications of my turning thirty cough a few months ago and eggs dying and this story. Cause I'm trying not to turn into one of those "Sara is just like me." people but she is kind of like me. We are cute and tall (good self esteem is positive) and I had a gap until I got braces...**

**Just read. **

**Oh yeah. I wrote this before I knew about eggs dying and such.**

**Okay just read.**

**Much love to Cybrokat and Danese. They make me look good.**

My husband, the steel-nerved, ever inscrutable Gil Grissom, feels much better. Our friends know and they are happy for him-us. As the group digested breakfast meats and pastries, they digested the fact that Grissom and Sara were more than just together. She was his wife. They were happy and scared like when you are going downhill roller coaster style. They were filled with joy but frightened of the unexpected. One of us is going to have to go and my husband insists that he will be the sacrificial lamb. I understand what he means. He feels like he's accomplished all he can at the lab. He will be leaving it in good hands with Cath and then maybe Greg, Warrick or Nick years later. He never will be and never wanted to be the director. He likes spending time with Jonathan. Thandie will still need the help and he likes teaching and doing his seminars. I know it's what he wants to do but something feels wrong. Not for him-for me.

Maybe it's not working professionally with Grissom? I don't know but something feels off. I want to tell Grissom but I don't' know how to do that because I don't' know what I'm feeling.

As if he's reading his mind he lets out a little snort as he begins to unbutton his shirt.

"I can't wait to tell Ecklie. I might call him right now. He's going to die. Twice divorced bald and bitter. Me with a full head of hair and a new wife. Him with only a master's-"

"Hey!" I poke him playfully.

"Sorry dear. Only a master's from a second rate school." He kisses my brow.

"Better," I murmur.

"Are you going to tell him why?"

"Are you kidding me? I might have our marriage license plastered to my head. Might buy a bigger ring. This is going to be sweet." The shirt is gone now. So are his pants.

"Do you want an engagement ring?" he asks.

Where did that come from? "What?"

"To have a set. To make it complete."

"We weren't ever engaged."

"Yes we were. We were engaged for a few hours."

"Do you want me to have an engagement ring?" He's serious but I am more interested in the thick bulge pressing in my thigh.

No shirt now. Only white contain boxers with tiny black bugs all over them. "I want you to have whatever you want."

"Let me think about it?"

"Sure." He slides into bed next to me and pulls me close.

xxxxx

Dr. Raven Black is as her name suggests - sleek and dark. She rarely smiles but when she does it's with an impish gap that rivals my own and turns her face into dark sunlight. She worked her way through medical school as a show girl. One of her old costumes, a red and gold number, hangs on the wall. The matching gold shoes sit on a battered antique table competing with a pair of silver sequined shoes that look to small for such a tall woman.

She waves me to a soft leather chair across for hers in the small sitting area. Her lithe body slids into place easily. "I forgot to say congratulations Mrs. Grissom."

"Thank you." She knows Grissom from seminars. Dr. Black does pinch hits for the county's forensic gynecologist when she needs goes on vacation of just needs a break. She's been my OBGYN for since I came to Vegas. I like her a great deal and always wished things were different and we could actually be friends. As it stands the doctor and patient relationship make it difficult to carve out a friend niche.

"You have the last good man in town Sidle-er Grissom or will it be Sidle-Grissom."

To be honest I hadn't thought about it. We've been hiding so the name thing hasn't exactly come into play. "I really don't know. I'll have to talk to Grissom."

"Already sound like a married woman." She says flipping open a pale pink folder with all my personal information for the last six years.

"So you're going with the NuvaRing. Right?"

"Right. Um, will my husband be able to feel it?"

Dark eyes brighten a little as she clicks a pen. "My husband can but he's a urologist. Most men can't but from what I hear if they do they like it."

"So there's nothing else you want to talk about right? You don't plan on having children so I don't have to give my standard you are about to turn 35 lecture."

Something foreboding prickles my tummy. "Yeah I did say that."

Seriousness fills her face and she closes the folder and pushes it aside, clicks her pen and pulls the prescription pad she had been working on towards her. "Sara. Do you want to have children?"

Well there it is. Someone has finally said it out loud. That's the thing that's been needling me for weeks when I kiss Johnathan goodnight and good morning. When I clean up small muddy footprints. When I seize up the idea that Jonathan and Thandie might move out.

"I don't know." It's all I can think to say. For years I've sung the same song over and over again. I don't want kids. I am not a kid person. I don't get kids and they don't get me. That was my constant refrain. Now with Jonathan in my life the possibility doesn't seem so daunting. I say truthfully, "My husband doesn't want kids."

She flips open the chart read the family in residence section. "Any more kids you mean."

I explain about Thandie and Jonathan. "So you both thought you didn't want kids but then he found a grandson and a daughter and his whole life changed?"

"Our lives changed."

"Still having your own kids is different. You don't have to sit up with them when they are sick. You don't make sure they eat their veggies. Don't have to deal with their temper tantrums."

"Jonathan likes his veggies. He had a cold the other week and his mom got called out on an emergency. We played some game that I don't understand the rules to but I kept winning and then we snuggled in bed and drinking orange juice and watching Dora the Explorer. Lately the temper tantrums have been about bare feet."

She smiles encouragingly. "His or yours?"

"Both. He insists that everyone must wear shoes." I don't want my boy to sound like a neurotic. "He's really a great kid. He just has a few eccentricities."

"Like his grandfather," she's still smiling and my eyes float to the prescription pad that she's now turned over. "Sara, you know I don't pull any punches. I don't do the standoffish doctor thing well. In my business I can't afford to. Fertility is fluid and has limitations. You are 35. You smoked for five years. Your husband is-how old is Gil?"

"50." The gravity of the number is unfamiliar.

"The only thing you two have going for you is that we know he is or was fertile. If you don't want to have kids then I'll write this prescription and we can call it a day. But if you don't know, my advice would for you and your husband to at least talk about it. He can use condoms for another month. It won't kill him."

TBC


End file.
